In the operation of the elevator, it is important to discriminate whether a passenger in an elevator car is a physically handicapped person using a wheelchair or an able-bodied person. The reason is that it becomes possible to provide safe use of the elevator to a passenger in a wheelchair, by changing an operation mode, such that when an ordinary able-bodied person is using the elevator, the operation mode is in a normal operation mode, and when a passenger in a wheelchair is using the elevator, it is changed to a wheelchair mode.
As the wheelchair mode, for example, the elevating speed of the car is made lower than the normal speed, and at the time of stopping on each floor, the landing accuracy of the car with respect to the hall floor is adjusted more precisely than the normal case. When the able-bodied is using the elevator, the elevating speed of the car is not made low, and the landing accuracy is not particularly increased, thereby the transit time of the elevator is reduced, and hence the operation efficiency can be improved.
It is necessary to automatically recognize whether a passenger in a wheelchair is trying to use the elevator, in order to automatically change the operation mode of the elevator depending on the kinds of the passenger.
Conventionally, no image processing device has been invented or developed for this purpose, and it is necessary for the passenger in a wheelchair to operate a push button dedicated to the wheelchair passenger by himself/herself, when he/she calls the car, or to operate the similar wheelchair button in the car after he/she enters into the car, to thereby give an instruction to change the operation mode with respect to the elevator system.
With regard to image recognition of the elevator passenger, for example, a measuring device of the number of waiting passengers is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-92563. FIG. 16 and FIG. 17 are diagrams which explain the contents of the technique described in this publication.
FIG. 16 shows the configuration of a conventional number measuring device. In this figure, the device comprises a camera 1001, an image processor 1002, a neutral network 1003, a number judgment unit 1004, a transmission unit 1005, and an elevator control unit 1006. The TV camera is installed on the ceiling located above the waiting passengers' heads, and is directed vertically downwards.
At first, an image is picked up by the TV camera. The input image 1010 in FIG. 17 shows that three people can be seen. An image picked-up in the situation that there is no person, that is, a background image 1011 is prepared beforehand, and the input image is subjected to a differential processing, thereby a human area appears as a difference. An example of the differential image is shown in 1012 of FIG. 17. This is binarized to thereby clearly show the human area. The result of binarization is shown in 1013 of FIG. 17. The series of processing is executed by the image processor 1002.
Then, the binarized image is divided into twelve blocks, and the divided images are input to the neutral network 1003. The input data is processed by the neutral network which has performed learning beforehand, and an output signal is processed by the number judgment unit 1004, to thereby judge the number of passengers. This result is transmitted to the elevator control unit 1006 by the transmission unit 1005.
In the image processing device disclosed in the above publication, if a plurality of passengers is seen in an overlapped state, the image area corresponding to an individual passenger is not clearly separated, and in the binarized image, such a phenomenon appears that a plurality of passengers corresponds to one area. In the conventional art, the camera is installed overhead facing downwards in order to avoid this phenomenon. However, since there is such a problem in an elevator hall that installation of a camera on the ceiling increases the cost, there is a demand to install the camera in the elevator car or in the outer frame of the elevator door. That is, under a normal camera installation condition, there is a problem in that image recognition is likely to be failed, since the individual passenger area is not separated in the image.
Further, a method for extracting a face image to recognize an individual person is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-193420. It is described here that each position of eyes is detected from the feature of the ridge of the nose, but it is not to judge the condition of the person, that is, whether there is a wheelchair with this person.
In order to solve the conventional problems, it is an object of this invention to provide an image processing apparatus which judges the condition of a photographed individual, and more specifically to provide an image processing apparatus which can automatically recognize whether a passenger who is getting on the elevator sits on a wheelchair, and an elevator provided with this image processing apparatus.
In the invention of this application, after a face area is extracted from a photographed image, a second area assuming, for example, a wheelchair is extracted from this area to thereby judge the existence (condition) of a wheelchair.